Government repression of Muslim prisoners backfired and expanded all prisoners’ religious rights

Evidence

Not all of the federal government’s techniques for controlling the practice of Islam were successful. One of the government’s strategies, for example, was the denial of First Amendment protections to Muslim prisoners. The Justice Department argued that since the NOI was not an authentic religious movement—but rather a “cult” that operated as a political organization—its followers in prison did not have the right to meet or conduct religious services. By redefining Islam as a “cult,” the government could avoid the messiness of legal protections for religious expression. But the repression of Islamic practice in both state and federal prisons ended up expanding rather than limiting the rights of prisoners to practice the religion of their choice. The efforts of incarcerated African American Muslims in US courts helped to establish legal precedents and rights for all prisoners. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 400

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader project of showing how anti-Islam measures often have unintended emancipatory consequences—echoes the pivot from interrogating Islam to examining the frightened subject’s failed control techniques.
• DEFINE: Shows the ‘cult’ label as a legal redefinition tool—the state’s anatomy of intolerance includes linguistic downgrading of the feared group to strip protections.